Friday, March 23, 2012

Labor intensive

Bill arrived early on Thursday to begin trying to remove the glued on, stapled on, nailed on vinyl flooring that was under the kitchen carpet. This is very labor intensive and making headway is a slow process. Bob arrived a short time later and they tried double teaming the floor to remove the ugly psychedelic yellow and orange nineteen seventies vinyl. They need to get the rough edges removed so they can self level the floor or put down a layer of tar paper before the underlayment goes down for the laminate flooring. Stop the presses…Bruce the floor guy said not to sand the old vinyl floors, so tar paper it is and some self level and thin-set.

And yet another delay on the texture guy who won’t’ show up until tomorrow. Tony the plumber is here and working on our bathroom sink except Bill has not grouted the tile so it won’t really be a working sink until tomorrow. It looks wonderful with the new countertop, backsplash and the white square vessel with the waterfall faucet is beautiful.

Friday, Tony will be completing the plumbing under the house and moving the gas line and shut off valves for the new gas cook top. That was the plan. Tony worked under the house and got half the work done because it is so wet. Monday he will be back.

Floors are not going down until the cabinets are in so Bill and Bob are putting down plywood frames for the cabinets to sit on, raising them five eighths of an inch off the floor. Measure twice and call Troy to double check the plans. This is a plan that gets repeated often to avoid the pitfalls of fixing errors later that require more labor and money than if you plan ahead.

A long dusty day but we are making progress. Before Bill left for the day he cut the old kitchen butcher block down, routered the edge, and gave it a first sanding. This is going to be the new countertop for the wall hung vanity in the guest bathroom. By next week we should have the guest bathroom in working order--hopefully.

Friday morning we were up early. Once Bill and Bob arrive to seal off the upstairs and the study from the kitchen and entry and we have no access to the bathrooms. Everything is done and again we are waiting on the texture guy, and waiting, and waiting. Finally at about 10:30 AM he arrives but mixes the texture too thin so Bill has to get him more mud to thicken it up. It takes only about thirty minutes to texture the room after it is mixed and then “texture guy” is off to another job.

Bob started removing the plastic within about thirty minutes but we need to stay out of those areas as it will take twenty-four hours to dry.
My mission, should I accept it, is to go to Windsor Plywood and pick out a piece of wood that will be the front of the wall hung vanity in the downstairs powder room. I picked a one inch by eight inch by three foot cherry wood piece of wood with a grain pattern and we will use a dark walnut stain.

Larry has acquiesced and told me just to go look at the carpet sample that was to come in today and choose which one I think we will both like. I didn’t like the sample that came in today because it had a stripe pattern and I think we need a multi color Berber look so it is there but doesn’t become the focal point.

I shopped for scrapbook supplies for the GRADS scrapbooking class next week and stopped at Costco on a Friday afternoon with half of Canada shopping there. Obviously I didn’t plan this out correctly.

Oh and let’s not forget that I needed to get the grout ordered today for the kitchen tile. The grout is a special order with about a ten day wait time. We chose a dark grey color to contrast with the white subway tiles and the glass accent tiles. It is a urethane grout, ready mixed, stain resistance, crack resistant, with mold and mildew protection, and it is water resistant. Less maintenance and that is a good thing.

I’m tired and I wanna go home. The guys were gone when I arrived but Larry had things to show me. The upstairs tile in our bathroom has been grouted and Monday the plumbing will be connected. We have to decide if we want the vanity sink pushed all the way to the back of the countertop or pulled out about an inch and a half.

Bill showed up Saturday afternoon and set the sink in our bathroom in place and grouted it the tile. Little things…so many of them to check off the list.

Sunday I tried to get all of our laundry done so we could set up our makeshift coffee station for Monday. In between loads of laundry I made another trip to Lowe’s (Larry says we should have bought stock in the company) to get a sealer/varnish of some sort to seal the butcher block top for the guest bathroom. Bill finished routering and sanding the top on Friday and said if I could get it sealed, then after Bob paints the bathroom on Monday we can install it on Tuesday. When I opened my can of Valspar McCloskey Man O'War Spar Marine varnish, I found it had been sitting too long and had gummed up. You can stir it but not shake it. After twenty minutes I gave up and realized I needed to buy a new can. Easier said than done… Lowe’s no longer carries this product from Valspar and Hardware Sales is closed on Sunday. I wound up with a Minwax satin polyurethane wipe on finish. Three hours between the first two coats and then twenty-four before I put on the third and final coat. I am looking for bowling alley wax to finish it off, but may have to order this online.

Monday morning Bob is putting the base coat over the texture and hopefully he will get the first top coat applied to the small areas that don’t have cabinets on the kitchen walls. Did I mention that we have a room full of cabinets coming on Wednesday? I asked Larry if anyone ever opened one of those boxes to make sure our cabinets are the right color….Larry said sure,”…well I imagine Troy did.” Wow…let’s pray that our cabinets that have been sitting in a warehouse for weeks are the right color or we could be weeks behind waiting on a re-order.

While I was at Lowe’s on Sunday, I bought the canvas drop cloths to make curtains/drapes. They are eight ounce canvas and a light linen color. I have been reading blogs about using burlap and canvas drop cloths to make curtains and it seems to be a very trendy look in the decorating industry. Now I just need to order the cheesecloth for the sheers that go behind the drapes. We have a beautiful nine by twelve cream and tan indoor/outdoor rug that we bought for the study when we remodeled it, but it wanted to creep across the flooring so we have stored it in the shop. I think we are going to get a pad for it and put it in the living room and hope it doesn’t creep across that floor.

Monday and I am running errands again and grocery shopping. Larry had Bill measure for a new door to be installed in the master bathroom so that we can special order it or not. Guess I need to find an online resource for a new door because Lowes wants three hundred and twenty-five dollars for a small door between the bathroom vanity area and the toilet/shower area. Really…just one door!

Larry and I did some online shopping and found a bathroom light fixture for the master bathroom from none other than Lowe’s. While I am there I guess I will try to buy up every one hundred watt bulb left in stock (these are the ones that can no longer be sold because they are not energy efficient but do contain small amounts of mercury…go figure…energy or safety.

Tuesday: a day without Lowes...going through withdrawals…not really. It’s okay because I have to go on Wednesday to return the extra tile that we didn’t need for the master bathroom backsplash and then to Home Depot to return the extra slate that we didn’t need around the fireplace. But I made up for it with a trip to Wal-Mart, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Target looking for a pedestal toilet tissue holder and hand towels. I like to buy local but then again these companies are all large corporations so shopping online to find a bargain, and I need a bargain right now, is not a bad thing.

I arrived home to find our master bathroom sink fully functioning. No water in the house because the plumber is working so in theory the sink is working. The downstairs is painted and Bob is working on the upstairs.
I put a final coat of sealer on the guest bathroom butcher block top and it will be ready to install in the next couple of days.

Wednesday and the list is growing again. The plumber is finishing the pipes under the house and we have no water again…Time to leave. Larry and had brunch out at Diamond Jim’s just to get away from the mess and have a little peace and quiet. Larry ran errands after brunch and I took time for my weekly art demo at Stampadoodle.

I made my daily trip to Lowe’s again to buy a new faucet for the upstairs guest bathroom. It seems there are no replacement parts for the faucet that is only a few years old so we need to replace it. I returned the tile we didn’t use while I was there and moved on.

Next stop Millworks to pick out door jamb molding and baseboard molding and make sure they have enough in stock. Bob will pick it up when he is ready to prime, paint, and install it. In and out in less than fifteen minutes.
The next zag in my zig across town was to Home Depot to return the extra slate and look for a harmonizing tile to match what I already bought for the guest bathroom downstairs. Larry wanted a little something extra to make it pop; Same blend of tiles in a border pattern that will look good with the existing tiles we already have.

Larry called and said the grout is in, but since it is downtown Bellingham and I am already heading in the direction of home, slowly, but going that way, I will wait until my foray into town tomorrow because I am sure I will need something else besides the grout. We have enough of the grout to use in the kitchen, the bathroom, and the slate in the living room. The grey color with make the white ceramic and cracked glass tiles pop in the kitchen, contrast with the bathroom tiles and blend with the slates tiles.

I missed all the fun but Larry took pictures: The cabinets arrived. Yay! We have cabinets in the living room, the sitting room, and the kitchen. We have cabinet boxes stacked on cabinet boxes. By the time I got home several of the cabinets had been removed from their boxes and placed against the walls. They are beautiful! Bill’s friend Tom arrived to help with the cabinets and he will be here during the entire time they are installing the cabinets while Bob installs flooring once he finishes painting and they move a few boxes. Exciting.

We might even have a downstairs bathroom by Friday.

While I was out, my sweet husband dusted the study again. We try but we just can’t seem to stay ahead of all the dust that accumulates too quickly. Sometimes you can see a new layer forming as soon as we have wiped everything down. We are thinking of hiring a cleaning service when everything is finished just so we can get it done quickly and start putting our rooms back together.

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About Me

Married to Larry and we have five kids, a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law, two grandsons, one granddaughter, and a neighborhood cat. I focus on creating art and/or teaching mixed media, paintings, shabby chic decor, paper-making, watercolors, and mosaics.
My art has sold in several states, the internet, and in my own shop.